Laboratory of the quality of metals, alloys and casts: the study of structure, physical and mechanical properties, defects and causes of reject

Production of quality casts or other non-ferrous blanks and alloys cannot be imagined without both quality control of the produced casts, and quality control of raw material (alloys). The same is true for companies operating in the market for production and sale of non-ferrous metals and alloys. They must constantly control the quality of produced and sold products.

Even 10-15 years ago the “customers” imposed only the requirements for compliance with the declared chemical composition to the purchased alloy, but today this is not enough. Since the process of producing high-quality casts or other semi-finished products directly depends not only on the chemical composition of the initial alloy, but also on the amount of non-metallic inclusions, gas saturation, etc., the “customers” more often require that the alloy manufacturers strictly control the alloy structure.

Today, such “stringent” demands are also imposed upon finished casting (for example, availability of hard non-metallic spots and gas porosity in a cast batch at machining stage leads to the whole batch rejection, which undoubtedly leads to large financial losses for a manufacturer).

Unfortunately, up to date not all manufacturers of casts and alloys have at their disposal modern research equipment and qualified specialists knowing the modern research methods.

In our quality laboratory we offer comprehensive or partial investigations of the structure and physical and mechanical properties of metals, alloys and casts as follows:

Precision determination of chemical composition.

Structure investigations

X-ray diffraction phase analysis.

Scanning electron microscopy.

Mechanical tests.

Measurement of other physical properties.

Analysis of cast defects and their causes.

Recommendations to improve the quality of alloys or casts.

We have highly qualified specialists to conduct researches and use modern methods and devices.

An example of our work is given below.

This is a part of the results of metallographic investigations of samples of aluminum casting alloys taken after the processing of melts with various fluxes in plant conditions at one of the largest foundries in Ukraine. Carl Zeizz Axiovert 40MAT optical microscope (Germany) with a digital image registration was used for metallographic investigations. The image of alloy structures was obtained with magnification of 43´, 215´ and 430´. Samples of АК10М2Н alloy were selected after melt processing with various refining fluxes. The alloy was melted in a gas reverberatory melting furnace. Fig. 1 illustrates microstructures of alloys: 1.1. – processing with MnCl salt; 1.2. – processing with a flux by CIS manufacture; 1.3. – processing with Probat Fluss Al 224 flux (Germany).

Sample 1.1, increase in 43×

Sample 1.2, increase in 43×

Sample 1.3, increase in 43×

Sample 1.1, increase in 215×

Sample 1.2, increase in 215×

Sample 1.3, increase in 215×

The conducted investigations clearly demonstrate the results of processing with refining fluxes of various types to remove non-metallic inclusions (black spots in the image of microstructures). The investigations were conducted to improve the melt purification technology to reduce rejects, improve the machining quality, and increase the strength and ductility of the cast. It was demonstrated that Probat Fluss Al 224 flux (Germany) is the most effective. Our experience and modern research methods will help you to improve the quality of products and reduce costs.